Chili, hashed brown potatoes, fried egg, plantain and avocado

This black bean and rice chile is delicious by itself but now it is enhanced with plantain.

Plantains are proper bastards to peel, and novices self-identify immediately. On the television show Chopped I saw each contestant struggle with this and in each case my one overriding thought was, "I hope you fail." 

None of them blanched the plantain first for ease of peeling, so they all suffered, and I gleed as they suffered because they were each so insufferably superior. 

Choke up on the blade tip and follow the plantain ribs.

Chili on scrambled eggs

Or chili if you prefer. This makes use of the pork chile described in the previous post. What did you expect? I have 180 gallons of the stuff, or possibly 2 gallons. 

This started out being an omelet but I decided to use the jerk-the-pan method instead of the gently-push-the-curd-inward method, and the whole egg mass solidified before the jerking and pan bashing could push it around and the liquid portion did not flow to the outer edges, and it all went so quickly. It is quite nearly an omelet but one that is not stuffed with anything inside. Therefore, the chile is placed underneath the stacked scrambled egg and on top of the stacked scrambled egg. Kind of like a sandwich where chile is the bread. And I must say, this chile is absolutely delicious, which shows it can very well be made easily with convenient pantry ingredients and not necessarily with all fresh raw ingredients. 

Chile omelet

This is a long photo essay for a very simple omelet. The idea arose from those chiles down there ↓. I have about 10 x this much shown on the plate. I opened two cans of these chiles for the tamales prepared previously where one can was surplus. It was a mistake and now I must live with it. Or I must waste the chiles, and if that is not a crime against humanity, it is at least a shame to food-conservation. The chiles appear to be of the mild New Mexican type. They are delicious but with virtually no capsaicin heat. Therefore the heat quotient of the omelet is enhanced by the addition of habanero flakes in an amount small enough so that they will not blast the face off the diner, that would be myself, as with a flame thrower. 

I have been making omelets for as long as I could hold a pan. I never order them out because the silly chefs can never do them as well as I can do myself. No brag, just FACT. They irritate me with their dalliance and their dawdling. If I was their head chef, I'd go all Gordon Ramsey on their asses, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. Anyway, I still do not know what to do with the rest of all those chiles. 

But I am hungry. And I am hungry for protein. So I will have it in two types, three, counting the omelet. 

Mixed meat patty ↑ formed earlier in bulk and frozen; beef, lamb, and pork, ground at home because there are laws forbidding such mixing of meats, intended to protect us, I suppose. Cooked gently and quickly in a frying pan.

Tofu soaking in a marinade ↓ I invented myself from a combination of my favorite things that I discovered go well together. I forgot to add garlic and ginger. No matter. It is delicious without it and it gives me something to look forward to later on. After marinading long enough to affect the tofu, a scant level teaspoon of corn starch was whisked into the liquid so that it would thicken as it heated.

Purdy, innit  ↑.

But I must get on now with preparing a mise en place for the omelet, for they happen quickly and eggs wait for no chef. Shut up, I'm pretending to be a chef over here. 

Asadero is a Oaxacan cheese. Oaxaca (Wa-ha-ka) is a state in Mexico. Asadero means 'roasting'. It is a meltable stretching cheese. It is more delicious than you might think. 

The tomato is for the tofu, to help it be more interesting. The meat patty is already interesting because it is made of three types of meat combined. Still, it gets some cheese and it benefits from the sauce. 

You will notice this plate to be inspired by the French, although their omelets are usually plain and not stuffed as we tend to do here, by Mexico, with their reliance on chiles, and by Japan, with its unique ingredients; sake, mirin, fermented anchovy fish sauce, shoyu, and tofu. 

Everything is ready. Observe: a master in his own mind at work. In my impetuous youth, I used to make omelets in mere seconds over high heat. I destroyed countless pans this way, or possibly three pans, and I considered that part of the deal with making omelets. I shook the pan violently to dislodge the curd and build it up toward the center. I put on quite a show, for I was nothing if not a showman. I am certain that whoever chanced to see me was impressed. 

But now I use low heat and treat the eggs gently and with kindness, as one would handle a baby chick, if that egg ever had a chance to get fertilized and develop into a chick. Oh no, now I'm getting sad again. Hold on. 

Back. 

So we have low heat. The egg begins to set around the edges. 

The egg curd is pushed toward the center and lifted so that liquid egg flows into the vacated areas. 

The process is repeated until liquid egg no longer flows. The pan can be removed from the heat entirely while the egg is still partially liquid. 

You can build it up quite high this way if you wanted to, then even fold it on top of itself for a stack of folds, if you care to be ridiculous about it, as I sometimes do just for fun. 

Okay, here is the thing. Do not attempt to fold the egg as you would a burrito. Unless, of course, you actually do have a tortilla under there, then by all means, carry on with your burrito. But an omelet can be started with a partial fold or a turn, and the whole pan tip out the omelet to complete the fold on the plate. 

Now, that ↑ is an expertly formed and turned out omelet that is stuffed to maximum in the American style. Try doing that and photographing it at the same time. I dare you. 

Eggs, rice, chile

I've seen people whisk egg whites to achieve fluffy omelets. I do not care for that technique because the result is fried puff. Air eggs. I do not want that. In that case, lightness is achieved by creating foam, but the eggs are still overcooked and often with an unpleasant incongruent toasted exterior, that, when it comes to egg, is an indication of overcooking. It is like a fried souffle. 

The aim is light egg contrasted with dense egg and different from air-bubble egg. I want barely cooked egg not rubberized egg-like material. I've learned to watch carefully, to stand there and continuously lift the cooked portion so that liquid egg runs under the cooked curd into the evacuated space and to keep doing that until it no longer runs. Flip if necessary, but usually residual heat will finish. The result is a pile of cooked egg layers that can then be rolled or folded to double or triple the stack. This pictured here was folded in thirds, it was so thick that folding amounted basically to rolling, for an impressively high stack of exceedingly lightly cooked egg. You never see that. Apparently I'm the only person on the Earth who does this. I should patent this idea. 

I will call these "lifted eggs." 

I think I'll host a brunch sometime and serve egg prepared this way one at a time (which is really three eggs at a time) and carefully reserve them in a warm oven until they're all done, assemble the plates, and blow everybody's mind right out of their skulls. 

BLAM! Brains all over the place. 

But not today, I'm slumming it today. 

This is rice that is cooked using the rice-steaming skillz of two separate divergent techniques. Japanese prefer their rice a little sticky, I think, because it makes it possible to pick up with chopsticks. To cook, excess surface starch is rinsed, then the rice is steamed, then is sits off heat but still covered to completion. Europeans, on the other hand, fry the rice in oil first to ensure grain separation and a fluffy non-sticking result. For risotto  the liquid begins with a cup of wine, which when fully absorbed and evaporated  is continued with another boiling liquid. The point is to keep the rice uncovered and continuously moving in moderate amount of liquid so the starch gets knocked off the individual grains to form a creamy sauce along with the cooking liquid  delivered in increments which becomes concentrated through the process by absorption and by evaporation. 

This rice pictured here starts out European but finishes Japanese.  The rice was not rinsed. The dry grains were fried in olive oil, a decidedly un-Asian ingredient, until brown along with fennel seed and combination of dried chile peppers. Once browned, it was  doused with a cup of red wine which is an odd choice, but it's what I had on hand. The wine used was old, oxidized, and vinegary.  Stirred until all the liquid absorbed and evaporated, then chicken broth added to steam covered as ordinary Japanese rice. The result is wonderfully uniquely flavorful  fluffy dry rice in dire need of a sauce.

This is the surplus chile reserved frozen that already has brown rice and beans in it with lots of pork. So on this plate is a double whammy of rice; white rice as a base, colored  and heavily flavored, and brown rice in the chile which is performing as sauce.  White rice and brown rice, daring in'nit. 

Topped with amedium Australian cheddar that was on sale at W.F.. I wish I had bought more of that stuff, but it was an experiment.

I have no cilantro or parsley but I do have mint and basil so that's what is used here. 

This odd combination of ingredients, flavors, and technique, is incredible. It's days like this that I amaze myself. I would not serve this exactly as it is to guests, and if I were a chef it would not be on the menu.  I'm afraid it's unmarketable, but the way this egg is prepared, not as an omelet, not as regular scrambled eggs, unlike a souffle, and not itself enhanced with any internal extraneous material or flavors, is nonetheless quite the spectacle there on the plate in its soft lofty extravagant pile once it's cut into and its dimension exposed. 

Huevos, chile, tortilla

Huevos rancheros.

Tortillas:

1/2 cup very hot water (some recipes use milk, pero la madre del Roberto usada aqua caliente)
1 tablespoon lard
3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/3 teaspoon salt
1 Cup A/P flour

Mix, knead, rest. Divide into four segments. Roll the segments into balls. Heat a cast-iron pan or a griddle to medium hot.

Roll out tortillas

I fried them one at a time. They cook within one minute.

Pork chili:

* 2 LBs or so of pork shoulder, pork butt, pork roast, cut into reasonable chunks.

Pork chunks are browned in a stewing pot in batches to cover the bottom. Cooked pieces of meat are reserved in a separate bowl until the all the batches are done. The onion and garlic are browned in the same pot, then the pork is added back.

* 1 large white onion, diced

* 2 or 3 cloves of crushed garlic

* 1 teaspoon cumin

* 1 teaspoon coriander

* 2 teaspoons Mexican oregano

* 2 teaspoons thyme

* 1/2 teaspoon S/P

* 1 frozen package Hatch green chiles

* 1 small can diced jalapeños

* 1 small can diced chipotle in adobo

The Hatch chiles were purchased last year from a roadside vendor that roasted them in one of those gigantic rotating roasting cages while we waited underneath a tent. I chatted it up with the people there in the shade of the tent.

The chiles have been sitting at the bottom of the freezer since then. They're not in the best shape.

Eggs:

The eggs are scrambled gently as if making an omelette. Very low heat, the curd pushed toward the center of the pan. The liquid egg flows to the area of the pan vacated by the curd pushed away. A pile of gently cooked egg curd is built up in the center of the pan. Removed from heat well before the surface is set so that a thin layer of liquid egg remains on the surface like a sauce. Tap out of the pan onto a plate without folding. Or, go ahead and fold for double thickness of piled up eggy goodness.  

Cheese, cilantro.